About three weeks after our confrontation in the library, Adrian finally runs me down in the kitchen. Pearl wanted tomake pies for Thanksgiving, so I arranged with Minh to borrow his domain for the afternoon. We’re not making real pies, just a dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar that one of my foster moms taught me to make.
Pearl and I are wearing our matching aprons with apples and frills, and Winnie is down for her nap. I’ve got the baby monitor on the counter, and Vera said she’d pinch hit if Winnie wakes up while we’re elbow deep in dough. I’m actually feeling okay when Adrian walks in, and once again, ruins everything.
“Daddy!” Pearl squeals, racing toward him with flour-coated hands.
Pearl halts a few centimeters short of colliding with his legs. She adores her father, but she’s cautious of him, too. She raises her arms and waits for him to pick her up and then cradles his face with her floury palms. “Why aren’t you at work?”
I’d like to know that, too. Is there trouble in paradise?
“I came home to talk to Mommy,” he says, glancing at me over her head.
My stomach twists into a knot. There goes that okay feeling.
“I don’t want to interrupt the bakers, though. What are you making?”
“Pie!”
“Pie is my favorite.”
“Your favorite is vanilla ice cream.” Pearl judgmentally wrinkles her nose. She’s made it clear on multiple occasions that she thinks that’s a poor choice.
“Can I sit here and watch the cooks in action?” Adrian asks, sliding onto a stool behind the butcher block island.
“Of course, Daddy.” Pearl beams. This is a rare treat for her—Daddy home during the day and letting her show off for him.
Adrian isn’t an absent father, but he is a busy man with a long commute, and his idea of spending time with the children is outings. On the weekends, before he nuked our life to hell, we’d do hikes or berry picking or historical sites or children’s museums, and then, when we got home, he’d disappear into his office to catch up on work. We never just hung out at home.
Except, that’s not exactly true. After Winnie was born, during those first weeks when she was struggling to latch, and I was on the verge of losing it from sleep deprivation, he started to make a real effort to get home in time to help with Pearl’s bedtime. He took over reading her story, and we’d all pile into her little princess bed, me tucked under one of his arms, Pearl under the other, and Winnie snuggled to my chest.
It was clear from the tension in his muscles that the cuddle puddle didn’t feel natural to him, but for a few months there, he’d gamely climb onto the pink bed, fluff the pillows behind him, and open his arms for us to climb in.
Thinking back, it was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
I turn my back to him and say to Pearl, “We’re almost done. Help Mommy roll out the last of this dough.”
Pearl races back over and climbs up on her foot stool.
I show her again how to sprinkle flour on the roller and get the rolling started for her. “Here, sweetie. Remember—start in the middle and push toward the edges.”
During our first few attempts, she rolled so hard, she pushed the whole mat across the counter. Now, she’s so gentle that I’m not sure the roller is even touching the dough. She’s a very conscientious kid. She wants to do things right, and she tends to overcorrect.
“Now the sugar,” Pearl says when she’s decided the dough is flat enough.
After an earlier mishap that left me scooping a cup of sugar back into the bowl, we’ve decided that sugar is my job. I heap a tablespoon on our dough and smooth it around, painfully aware of Adrian’s eyes on my back. For once, I wish he’d get on his phone.
“Okay, you’re up,” I say to Pearl.
She carefully sprinkles the cinnamon.
“Do you want to roll?” I ask.
“You start. I finish.”
I use my nails to free the edge from the mat and roll it once. “Your turn.”
Pearl carefully rolls the rest until we have a log. I cut it into pieces with a butter knife, and Pearl arranges them on a small tray I’ve lined with aluminum foil.
“I thought we were making pie,” Adrian pipes up from the island.
